


you could be the one to see it through

by twistedingenue



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Plot and Smut, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s disorientating, seeing herself from so many angles, the top of her head and the curve of her spine as she curls over, and she tries to stare at her feet, waiting for the image to fade.  Being rolled out to the MRI was almost humiliating, because gossip travels fast and as the people in the hallways connected the dots from “Civilian caught in villainous crossfire” to “SHIELD asset caught in crossfire” to “Darcy Lewis is reading your fucking mind now”. Except it might be easier if she could read every thought in a persons mind, because maybe then it wouldn’t seem like everyones’ brains were constantly thinking about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you could be the one to see it through

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to psalmoflife for the beta-ing, and all my usual cheerleaders for putting up with me when these two smartasses wouldn't shut up and kiss damnit.

Paper gowns. Even SHIELD medical uses the shitty paper gowns that scratch and cover nothing. They barely cover the lithe and athletic field agents and Darcy is neither of those. She spreads her fingers out, flattening out the hem of the gown, letting it drag over her thighs. The thoughts of the last doctor in the room are still with her, flashing with concern and trying to not to think of the elephant in the room. He’d left the room thinking of Darcy’s vitals, how strange this situation was even for SHIELD.  
  


It’s disorientating, seeing herself from so many angles, the top of her head and the curve of her spine as she curls over, and she tries to stare at her feet, waiting for the image to fade.  Being rolled out to the MRI was almost humiliating, because gossip travels fast and as the people in the hallways connected the dots from “Civilian caught in villainous crossfire” to “SHIELD asset caught in crossfire” to “Darcy Lewis is reading your fucking mind now”. Except it might be easier if she could read every thought in a persons mind, because maybe then it wouldn’t seem like everyones’ brains were constantly thinking about her.  
  


So it’s the stupid sort of telepathy, where she only gets the thoughts that are about her, and they come in however that person thinks. Jane thinks in slanted lines, everything askew and Darcy knows that she’s already thinking of who can actually solve this, who among the squishy human sciences she can trust to not screw Darcy up more. It’s beautiful really, the way she perceives Darcy, almost at the end of a diminishing tunnel, the zenith of her focus.  
  


But now, it’s just Darcy in the cold hospital room, alone, because as much as people like her (she knows that now) everyone is just a little unsettled by any sort of telepathy. Mind invasion, a nurse had thought, with the truly terrifying image of Darcy shrouded and her eyes all pupil. It’s not entirely false, but Darcy is trying to frame it as more picking up what other people project. Change the focus so it’s not as creepy.  
  


It doesn’t change things, she’s still alone in the room, her eyes darting around for something to keep her warmer. A cloth gown would even be acceptable.  A sheet would be even better. But there’s nothing to hide her discomfort or how cold she’s getting. Maybe she needs to make sure that medical is fully-funded, this can’t be how the field agents get treated.  
  


Darcy knows the answer to her question before the doctor opens the door.  
  


“It’s not going away anytime soon, is it?” She asks when he opens the door. And slowly, in words and images, Darcy gets it. They don’t know what this is and maybe, if she’s lucky, it’ll fade away in time.

 

* * *

 

If it’s going to fade, it’s going to take it’s sweet time, and Darcy is going to have to come out of hiding at some point. She’s been learning, slowly, how to not let the images overwhelm her and let them come and go. Still, she’s got her safe spots. Jane’s lab, her own room, and she’ll hide in Tony’s workshop. Tony doesn’t think much of Darcy, she’s noticed. Oh sure, when he sees her, he thinks of outlandish, dirty scenarios involving Darcy.  
  


“I don’t bend that way,” Darcy says, curled up with her phone on an oversized chair, wearing oversized sunglasses, less of a sensory input. “Also, leather jumpsuit? In our line of work, that’s rather pedestrian, don’t you think?”  
  


“Oldie but a good one, kid. I’m more thinking Emma Peel than our own workday outfits though.” Tony throws some real data into a fake wastebasket, and Darcy rolls her eyes. “Kid, you need to get out of the lab, get some food and I’m the one saying that.”  
  


Darcy shakes her head, “And do what? Go eat in the lunchroom? Where people just avoid looking at me and think they aren’t thinking about me. The pity is the worst sort of feeling when it isn’t yours!”  
  


“I get that I don’t quite get it, but I do know something about pitying looks. Baby steps, baby girl, go walk a hallway or something.”  
  


She knows she can’t live her life like this, keeping only to safe people in known areas. What if this doesn’t stop? She’d like to leave the Tower someday. A hallway, maybe the one leading to the lunchroom, she can do that.

 

* * *

 

She can do that. And it’s not too bad. She now knows that Clarence from accounting has thoughts about her bra, although thankfully, they are about asking her where she gets them. Apparently, his wife is very blessed. That visual though, his constant practicing of the conversation is endearing but there’s not really a good way to bring up “hey, so your thoughts are in my head” in a work email.  
  


Another day and she’s still not able to eat in the lunchroom, but she can wait outside while waiting for Jane to bring her a tray. She leans up against the wall, closes her eyes and wills herself invisible.  
  


The first thing she feels is heat, and the flash of an image, like it’s just out of her reach. Like the others, she sees through their eyes, feels through their skin, and she sees rough hands skimming her cheeks, joining behind her neck and pulling strands of her hair. A hand slips down her back, pulls her close and…  
  


It’s gone. Darcy swallows and darts her eyes, but there’s just a mass of people exiting the cafeteria and not a single way to tell who that was.  
  


Jane exits behind the group, absently handing over a tray. Jane seems to have forgotten that Darcy doesn’t like banana pudding, but that’s an improvement in her human observation skills, so she’s going to take that as a win. “Oh huh, I guess they are back.”  
  


“Who’s back?” Darcy asks, because Jane won’t expand on the statement of fact unless she extolls her to continue.  
  


“Bunch of field agents went on a training exercise, they’ve been gone for like two weeks, and they ended up here for the debriefing,” she gets a predatory look in her eye, “Natasha promised me they’d collect me some data from where they went. We should make this a working lunch.”  
  


“Do we have any other sort?”  The ensuing splash of images from Jane, memories of many of their lunch hours, mostly involving Darcy bringing her a sandwich, makes her laugh all the way back to the lab.

 

* * *

 

Trying to track down which of the jack-booted thugs is having highly inappropriate, but extraordinarily hot thoughts about her is more difficult than she thought it would be. The security camera footage was mostly just a sea of heads and black uniforms and not helpful at all.  
  


“What are you looking for?” Steve peers over her shoulder at her laptop where she’s cross-referencing a few seconds of footage from different angles, and Darcy shuts the lid in a hurry.  
  


Captain America does not need to know that she’s more than a little fixated on who this guy was. Nor does Steve Rogers, who blushed so damn red after he found out about Darcy’s little condition. But in the scheme of things, the single second stray thought he had of Darcy taking off her shirt was almost innocent.  
  


Steve looks at her with concern now, and she doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he’s thinking, “It’s really nothing, someone was thinking about me and I’m trying to figure out who.” She shrugs, “I mean, it might be a needle in a haystack, and if I have to take something away from this it’s that people might think about you, but it’s never anything personal. That and guys are seriously underestimating…” Darcy looks up at Steve, and okay, she knows Steve isn’t like, a blushing teenage ingenue or anything, he can throw shade and innuendo with the best of them, but sometimes things still throw him for a loop, “Whatever. This guy had a more involved line of thinking and I don’t know, it was neither fleeting or skeevy.”  
  


“And you want to know more?” Steve settles his eyes on her, and for god’s sake, he waggles his eyebrows and that’s just not fair. She loves hanging out with this man when he is actually forgetting to be a paragon, and just be Steve.  
  


“Out of all the fantasies I’ve encountered that involve me, it was the first one that actually seemed to be about me, not just a random thought or interchangeable with any other pretty woman.” Darcy tilts her head and smiles, long and she can feel her cheeks start to blush.  
  


“Yeah, I think I can understand that a little bit.” And of course Steve can. There’s probably not a person, much less straight woman, alive that hasn’t thought about Captain America in that way. Including herself, back before she started seeing him on a near daily basis and he became just another really hot guy that wandered the halls looking for something to do.    
  


“You see anyone that looks like they are totally into me?” Darcy says, returning back to the security footage. Steve does look over the tapes with her, but comes up blank as well.

 

* * *

 

This time, she sees hands under her hips, caressing and urging her leg up and into a very interesting position. She’s smiling, no, grinning, her eyes wide open, her glasses still on. Whoever her mystery man is, he pays close attention to her hair, and the way it spreads across the lab table, her lab table. Paper sticks out from underneath Darcy. He has strong hands, and  she gasps as his thumb grazes over her clit and….  
  


Darcy is alone in the lab. Jane’s out conferring with a couple of scientists a floor over. Her problem seems to work best within sight, but strong images come out by mere proximity, which means that her guy must be near her. Passing by the hallway and thinking about her. There’s no point in running out of the lab, if the image just stopped, then he’s long gone.  
  


Darcy takes stock of the information she has now. Whoever it is, knows what the lab looks like, knows  that there’s a dent on her workspace, knows that she never has it clean because her work is all paper in triplicate.  There’s a smaller group of people that come in on a regular basis, but its still a rather large group to sort through.

 

* * *

 

Whoever this is, must wander around the building at odd intervals, because in the past day, Darcy has felt and seen a good half dozen fantasies starring her and just her. And every time she runs out the door, lifts her head, there’s no one around. Not unless Jane has taken up coming up with the most exhilarating internal sex life just to entertain Darcy.  
  


Darcy really doubts that. Jane’s not that sort of friend.  
  


It’s probably just some scientist that hangs around from time to time, but a girl can dream. Because damn it, it’s affecting her. She wants to be the Darcy this guy sees, she’s never looked more gorgeous, more wanted. This should be creepy and gross, and it is, in the rational part of her brain. But the rest of her wants to be the woman on her knees, lifting her lips up from the mystery man’s dick and smiling.

 

* * *

 

It’s starting to get  harder to see the impressions, the thoughts about her now. She’s old hat news, the gossip trained moved on to someone else.  You always think people are thinking about you, about your shoes or your biggest fears. But that’s narcissistic, and untrue. Most people aren’t thinking of you at all, and if that doesn’t make Darcy go a little quieter, it at least flips her stomach a little.  As much as you don’t want people to be thinking about you, you want them to think of you just a little.  
  


She’s taking a twenty minute power nap on the dubious couch in the lab, and wakes up to the dual sensations of the smell of rich,  dark coffee and the lingering thoughts of her own hair spread against bedsheets, her eyes closed in sleep. Her head tilts to one side, exposing her neck, her smile and the purple sheets underneath. Sheets she’s seen before,  if only because she’s been part of the escort team for the drunk patrol and deposited a half asleep Barton in his bed.  
  


Oh god, it’s Barton.  It all makes sense. Scuttlebutt didn’t make it to the folks who were on the training exercise, so he never had cause to stop thinking about her. He’s always hanging around the labs when he’s not away, annoying Banner and stopping in with a pot of coffee for Darcy and Jane at just the right times.  
  


Other than that, there’s no indication that he’s especially liked Darcy. He doesn’t much interact with her other than the coffee, doesn’t even tease her. But he teases everyone else, pulls jokes and pranks, but with Darcy he just shows up, smiles  and pours himself a cup before leaving. And Darcy’s always wished he’d stay just a little bit longer, talk a little. She remembers him from New Mexico, quietly watching and guarding the cleanup from a rooftop a street away, always a little bored, like he was just slightly out of his element.  
  


If he’s interested, and surely he is. Fantasies don’t have to mean anything, of course, sometimes you can’t control your brain,  but, this seems so much stronger than the fleeting thoughts of the mentally depraved.    
  


So that’s how she ends up at Clint’s door at two in the morning. His hair sticks up  from sleep, and his eyes take her in when he opens the door, a flash of thoughts of her stifled as soon as they emerge.  
  


“Darcy, I am so sorry, I didn’t know. Look, I’ve offended you, I’m sorry, I’m trying to stop.” He rambles, still at the door, trying to slick his hair down.  
  


“You know, this would probably go a lot easier if this whole telepathy thing went both ways,” Darcy says. “Let me come in?”  
  


“Yeah, of course.” He steps aside, and in her head, Darcy sees her own backside in an exaggerated sway. She laughs while Clint looks embarrassed and stutters another apology.  
  


“You like me,” she says straight up and without any doubt, “and you weren’t going to tell me.” He opens his mouth to object, but it’s the truth and nothing comes out. “I’m sure you had your reasons, but I kinda want to override them.”  
  


Clint blinks. “You want to override my objections without knowing what they are?”  
  


“I’m pretty sure they are stupid,” Darcy points out. “Look, I’ve gotten a lot of shit thrown at me in the past couple of weeks. I know more about people, and have seen myself from so many angles that I am never going to need one of the triad mirror setups when shopping for clothes again. I liked yours. I never felt exaggerated or used. I’ve been going nuts the past couple days trying to figure out who this person was, because even if I didn’t like them like that, they’d be someone I’d want to know.”  
  


“But it’s me,” Clint says, “and it’s….”  
  


“Again, this would be so much easier if the telepathy went both ways.” Darcy throws her hands up and takes the few steps forward. “Also if you like me, I feel like I’ve bypassed the need to try to get through a few dates.”  
  


Screw everything else, this is the most curious sensation ever, kissing and seeing herself being kissed at the same time. It’s a feedback loop of excitement, watching plans and thoughts roll through his head the same way his hands reach down to grab hers, draw her closer.  
  


“Do you always think like, five steps ahead?” She laughs as the image of her leading him towards the bedroom.  
  


“It could be misdirection,” Clint grins into her mouth, letting the kiss grow deeper between them, and it may have been misdirection because his hand starts drawing up the fabric of her shirt, breaking off the kiss long enough to throw the shirt off to the side. “Hey, look, I was right.” Clint cups her breasts through her bra. Which if she had thought this through more, she would have worn a nicer one.  
  


There’s an easy way to deal with that, and she doesn’t wait to unclasp her bra and drop it down, “Not waiting for you to fumble your way around the clasp.”  
  


“Are you going to smartass your way through getting laid?” Clint gets his hands back on her, wrapping one arm around her to guide her to the bedroom.  
  


“I really have no other way to function,” she says, encouraging his shirt off now and relishing in the one view she’s never had. She’s seen bits and pieces of Clint. Arms, legs, cock, but never his chest, has never seen his flat stomach. She presses her hand against the skin, like meeting for a prayer. The muscles are firm and defined, but he’s built like a man whose muscles weren’t built by weights but by hard work. Her hand travels up, through the coarse and scattered hair between his pecs, and circles her fingers through it before looking up at him, lips caught together with barely surprised glee.  
  


“You are going to give a guy a complex,” Clint chuckles, and hey, bedroom. Clint’s bedroom, that she seen half a dozen times, and his purple sheets which have been playing vividly in her head since this afternoon.  
  


“Shut up, I haven’t had nearly as much time to think about what you’d look like as you have.” She darts her eyes. “That’s a really awkward sentence.”  
  


“You look exactly like I imagined,” he says, reverently, sliding his hands down her side and holding onto her hips and grinding into where they start to fit together. “But you feel so much better in person.”  
  


Darcy pushes him down to sitting on the bed and straddles him, this has gone on long enough, and in-between their lips meeting, and the heat of their breath mingling between them, she’s worked the buttons of his pants open, jeans he’d not bothered to take off even late at night. No, wait, this is even weirder than before, because she knows what she’s getting into, and the memory of thoughts and the present mingle as he launches up, keeping her steady. They both scramble out of the rest of their clothes, because romance and all that shit can wait. Darcy has had days of never being quite satisfied behind her.  
  


Clint seems to have a similar idea, and she’s flat on her back and can hear her laugh choke off into a moan when his fingers find her slit and dip into the pooling wetness. She pulls him tighter to her, easing some of his weight onto her, enjoying the press of skin against skin, the hard cock against her thigh somehow being more of a tease than Clint’s fingers finding their way inside her. His thumb slides over her clit and she’s suddenly caught up again in deja vu, except she’s not on a lab table, but it’s the same hands and the same sensation and she’s in two places at once.  
  


His thumb is surer as he continues, gradually offering more pressure with every stroke. Darcy explores the way his muscles move underneath her tightening fingers as he works her over, shaking her apart and taking her back from his fantasy and into reality, merging every thought and image together into something greater, something better.  
  


Darcy doesn’t get the chance to catch her breath before Clint is looming over her, stretching his arm out over her for the night stand. “Let me help,” she says, taking the wrapper from his hand and removing the condom from it. Clint sits back, closing his eyes and his jaw dropping wordlessly as she rolls the latex over his cock. He’s hard enough that it looks like it should hurt and she doesn’t want to wait another moment. “Please Clint?”  
  


In all of the fantasies she’s seen from him, she’s seen the exotic locations, the bits of gratuitous longings over her body, her mouth and her eyelashes of all things. Fucked over lab tables, blowjobs in dark corners, but nothing as straight forward and simple as missionary. She loves it. Loves the weight of his body,  the way he keeps his mouth on hers, the arch and rise of her hips to meet his.  
  


Darcy draws up her knees wanting to bring Clint in deeper. Clint slides his hands under her ass and then up her legs, coaxing them up to his shoulders. He nuzzles her calf, the scruff of his day old beard giving way to the silk and gloss of his lips.  
  


His thrusts, like his breath and his groans that rattle every sense of her, are ragged and unmeasured. Every time he closes his eyes Darcy is treated to a new flash of herself and what she looks like in Clint’s thoughts. She sees herself both like an observer and a ghostly apparition, and she sees actions not taken and those he takes. Through it all, clear like a shot, she sees Clint above her with a thin layer of sweat at his temple, and the minutiae of movement contracting and expanding throughout his face and body as piece by piece he comes.

Darcy closes her eyes again, Clint cleans up around them. She’ll have to get up too in a few minutes, but first she just lies back, finding a cool spot on the sheets to rest her head.  
  


“Wow,” Darcy opens her eyes to see Clint watching her from across the room, naked and wide-eyed, “Deja-vu.” He looks away with a  bashful smile that seems so private and unguarded that it seems like it’s just for her. “You just look — I thought of you like this earlier today, spread out and half-asleep and that I’d never get that or that I shouldn’t even try. That the thoughts were good enough for me.”  
  


“It’s not how I thought my day would end either.” Darcy admits, “I like you, I think that was a lot of fun, and I’d really like to fall asleep with someone warm next to me, if you don’t want me to leave.”  
  


She forgot how fast he could move and between one blink and the next she’s tackled on the bed. “Hell no sweetheart, I’ve had a lot of good thoughts about us, and I fully intend to investigate each one.”

 

  
  



End file.
